Extending Wi-fi

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simon
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#31 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

Well, I had some fun and games. I was having to reset my Microsoft password in order to login to Windows for some reason, but when I next started it wasn't recognised. And I had to reset it again to get back in. I began to fear that we had a virus. So I spent a lot of Sunday afternoon trying to get control of the laptop again.

Long story short, with the aid of a USB keyboard I eventually worked out the number lock was on, even though the led wasn't. It's a small laptop so the number pad is in the middle of the letters.

So it wasn't the most auspicious of starts.

Then I plugged the WiFi router in and tried to login to it. The ip address in the instructions wouldn't work but the wordy address did. The first few times. Then I could only access it by checking its ip address on my network and entering that. And then I went round in a loop back to the same page when I tried to login to the router.

After the afternoon I'd had I was getting a little exasperated.

Then I tried accessing via my phone. Which wanted me to download the Linksys app as it doesn't support my browser. Which is Chrome.

Anyway, the app worked faultlessly thankfully. And the WiFi router just seems to work. At no point has it asked me to set it up as an AP or anything else. And it looks like it's running DHCP which I haven't tried turning off seeing as it seems to working fine.

The Plusnet router allocated it at 192.168.1.138 - the Plusnet router is 192.168.1.254 which I think is not the same subnet?

Speedwise it doesn't seem much different to the Plusnet modem router wifi when I positioned it adjacent. But the big difference is that I've been able to position it closer to the middle of the house so Speedtest.net is telling me I'm getting high 20 or mid 30s of my 40Mbps all over the house now. Which is a result.
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Nick
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#32 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Nick »

Depends on your subnet mask but the typical 255.255.255.0 or /24 class C mask puts those two addresses in the same subnet.
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#33 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Neal »

So you now have two DHCP servers now running on the same subnet? :bounce:
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Nick
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#34 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Nick »

Neal wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:44 am So you now have two DHCP servers now running on the same subnet? :bounce:
Not necessarily, it could just be using the DHCP server on the original router. It would look the same to the clients.
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simon
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#35 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

Nick wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 1:38 am Depends on your subnet mask but the typical 255.255.255.0 or /24 class C mask puts those two addresses in the same subnet.
Yep, 255.255.255.0, so the same subnet then :-)
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#36 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

Neal wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:44 am So you now have two DHCP servers now running on the same subnet? :bounce:
I'm not 100% sure TBH. I suspect it may also be running a DHCP server, screenshot of the router page attached. But it was working so I wasn't sure, and after the afternoon I'd had with it I was inclined to leave it alone as it seemed to be working. So maybe Nick's right? The router help wasn't particularly helpful...
Linksys DHCP.jpg
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#37 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by jack »

Definitely untick that box!!!

You only want one DHCP server on a given subnet ... (In normal circumstances)

In your case, the new router would happily issue IP addresses on a different subnet with incorrect gateway and DNS info.

A world of pain can result otherwise.
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Nick
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#38 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Nick »

Yes, but, it looks like its created a new separate private /24 network so that network will need its own DHCP server instead of the one from the outside router. Should be ok as long as you don't need to setup any VPN servers or any gaming services that need NAT routing from the internet into your inner LAN. Its sort of made 192.168.1.0 a DMZ
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#39 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

I understand all of those words in isolation Nick, but not in that order :-).

So I unticked the box and lost the WiFi, so it looks like it perhaps does have its own network?

Why might I want a VPN server, and I'm not a gamer but what's NAT? And a DMZ?
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Nick
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#40 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Nick »

NAT = Network address translation. It makes all the internal private 192,168.1.x address look like4 a single address on the outside. Its normally used on the router between your LAN and the internet at large. Mainly as ip (v4) addresses are running out, so you only get the one normally, so the router cretes a lookup table between inside and outside to map your private addresses to the public ones. It can also be a security thing as the outside network doesn;t se your inside addresses, so can't initiate a connection. Its only a issue for services like games servers that want to be seen from outside thats normally done using a port forward setup on the router. And VPN's can be a problem because of reasons that I won;t go into.

DMZ = Demilitarized zone. Used with firewalls to have a local inside address where everthing is hidden, but you may have some services like email servers and web servers that need to be seen from the internet, so the DMZ is a area thats protected by the firewall, but is not as hidden as the inside local addresses,.

Both are unneeded (though still used sometimes) with IPv6 but that a different bag of worms.
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Nick
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#41 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by Nick »

So for example, your current outside internet address is 31.185.43.138 that’s a real public address that any machine in the world on the internet can send packets to.

And doing a whois request on that address shows

inetnum: 31.185.32.0 - 31.185.47.255
netname: PLUSNET-DIAL-ADSL

So its part of the range from 31.185.32.0 - 31.185.47.255 that has been allocated to Plusnet.

All your LAN addresses are hidden inside the one outside address.
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simon
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#42 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

I did wonder if it's demilitarised zone but thought nah, can't be!
Well it seems to be working so I'll leave alone. Till something goes pearshaped and I have to get familiar with it all over again.

Thanks for everyone's help.
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#43 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by jack »

Yep. As nick said, you are double NATting.

Shouldn't be any problems except if you are online gaming or using a VPN from the WiFi.

Sometimes a WiFi router can be made transparent for DHCP client requests, i.e. it'll pass them through to your main DHCP server on the router that connects to the internet. If that happens, everything in your house will be on the same subnet...

The way you have it at the moment is that there are two subnets - one for everything on the new WiFi, and one for all the fixed infrastructure and old WiFi. The new WiFi router gets a single DHCP address from the existing DHCP server, and issues its own subnet addresses to everything on the new WiFi, NATting between the two subnets.

Both setups are just fine.
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simon
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#44 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

Thanks Nick, I understand that now. Despite the problems I had logging in to the WiFi router it was pretty much plug and play, configuring of SSIDs aside.
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#45 Re: Extending Wi-fi

Post by simon »

I had a Pi running LMS which I needed to reconnect as it used a wifi connection. Got around to it this morning but I can't for the life of me get LMS to see it.

As it's connected via wifi it's on the Linksys's network with an ip address of 10.244.summat, and connecting to the pi by ethernet I've reset its SSID in piCorePlayer to the Linksys. And I can access it via wifi using its new ip address in Chrome. But it refuses to show in either LMS on the computer or on Squeezer on my phone.

It's a while since I've had to play with pCP so maybe I'm missing something. Anyone got any good ideas? I've restarted Squeezelite and the Plusnet modem router. I wondered if it might be a firewall issue, but if so why can I access it?
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